1. Technical Field
The present teaching relates to methods, systems, and programming for automatically routing traffic of different applications to appropriate network interfaces.
2. Discussion of Technical Background
With the advancement of telecommunication technologies, accessing information and making a connection with a remote party at anytime and anywhere have becoming realities. Network connections have become more and more ubiquitous. Early mobile devices used to have only one air interface for data communication. For example, a mobile device could interact with either Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) or Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) air interfaces, but not both. However, mobile devices available in today's market are often made to be able to interact with different access technologies that enable user data access through different alternative network interfaces. Examples of such alternative network interfaces include WiFi, Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMax), and Long Term Evolution (LTE). Although these alternative data technologies may not have the extensive coverage provided by the primary air-interface technology (i.e., CDMA or GSM), they are important to offer users to have ubiquitous data access anywhere.
FIG. 1 (Prior Art) shows a network configuration 100 in which mobile devices may interact with multiple network air interfaces to access different applications. Mobile device 105 may access either its operator's applications or other types of services, including services from the Internet 145 (e.g., hosted on general Internet application servers 150) or from other private sources such as from a nearby printer 165 or a peer mobile device 155 accessible via a non-operator network 135 (e.g., WiFi). The operator's network 120 comprises a plurality of base stations 110, . . . , 115, one or more operator application servers 125, and a VPN concentrator 140. When the mobile device 105 is to access an operator's application, the mobile device may connect, when it is available, to a nearby base station, e.g., 110, which routes data between the mobile device 105 and the operator's application server 125 to facilitate the service. In common situations, a mobile device serviced by a network operator can access applications provided by its service provider by connecting to the operator's network. For instance, a customer of Verizon Wireless can access, on a mobile device, certain applications offered by Verizon Wireless by connecting to the Verizon Wireless network. To allow a mobile device user to access its service provider's applications, the service provider usually relies on authentication and access policies. With that mode of operation, the service provider assumes that the mobile device is accessing network resources from the mobile operator's Radio Access Network.
Newer mobile devices are designed to be able to support Internet connectivity from alternate radio access networks (e.g. Wi-Fi) that do not belong to the mobile operator. With those devices, when the operator's network is not available, the customer or the user of a mobile device serviced by the operator can still access the operator's application via a non-operator's network or alternative air-interfaces. For example, when mobile device 105 is in an area where the operator's wireless network 120 is not available, the mobile device 105 may connect to the non-operator network 135 (e.g., WiFi) in order to access its operator's applications. In this mode of operation, mobile device 105 needs to recognize the situation and act accordingly. This includes directing data traffic to the appropriate interfaces and taking actions to carry out appropriate connectivity procedures to make the mobile operators' application work on alternate interfaces.
In order to enable a mobile device to access its operator's services via alternate air interface technologies and/or general Internet access, virtual private network (VPN) tunneling to the operator network, e.g., the VPN concentrator 140, has been used. While this provides a solution to network access to the operator's services, problems exist. For example, when routing data traffic, it is not clear when to use which of the available alternate air-interface technologies. In addition, there is no mechanism to know when to setup the VPN and how to route data packets over multiple interfaces that result. Therefore, a more effective solution to the problem mentioned is needed.